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Marvin, 10/31/19

Marvin’s been doing some pretty run-of-the-mill costume party antics this week, not even up to its usual levels of diaper-shitting humor, but it’s pretty weird that the late October party that features the characters dressed up in various disguises has been consistently referred to as … “Octoberfest”? Is there some constituency out there that would be offended by printing the word “Halloween” in a newspaper comic? Who exactly is King Features afraid of: fundamentalist Christians who are tired of the Devil’s holiday getting good press in the liberal media, or neo-pagans outraged about cultural appropriation of their Samhain celebrations — or both, working in a literally unholy alliance? All I know is that a party called “Octoberfest” should feature revelers drinking out of enormous steins of beer, and if you’re about to say, “Josh, don’t be silly, babies don’t drink beer,” I’d like to point out that they don’t crack wise about each other’s costumes with heavy-lidded, cynical facial expressions either, and yet here we are.

Gil Thorp, 10/31/19

OK, yeah, the “big reveal” is that Chance had a lot of emotional problems as a kid, blah blah blah, he’s worked through them with therapy and a lot of love and a cutesy nickname for his demonic anger, etc. etc. etc., but let’s just pause to acknowledge how empathetic yet masculine Gil looks in today’s final panel, shall we? His face carefully composed to demonstrate that he’s really listening to what Chance is saying, his slightly shaggy hair rustled by the fall breeze, he’s the positive male role model Chance never had, except I guess his grandfather and maybe his father, who we haven’t really heard anything about one way or the other. “God damn,” Gil thinks to himself as Chance gives a heartfelt explanation of why school board officials probably shouldn’t be going on fishing expeditions through kids’ disciplinary records, “I’m awesome.”

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Dick Tracy, 10/15/19

It was all fun and games reading up on the hilarious backstory of Detective Frisk and Sal Monella, but the current storyline has turned out to be kind of enh, mostly involving Frisk tracking down Lily, her birth mother, who turns out to have sold Frisk as a baby as part of some kind of baby-selling ring she’s still connected to that Frisk is investigating, and now she’s pretending to emotionally bond with Frisk so that the ring can … catch up with Frisk, I think? Or something. Anyway, today is notable because said baby-selling bio-mom proves that she’s truly beyond the pale morally by openly lusting after Vitamin Flintheart, who’s a weird gross old man and also already spoken for. Control yourself, Lily! You should go see a production of Our Town to appreciate its metatheatrical commentary on ordinary lives, not to get horny!

Mary Worth, 10/15/19

Speaking of not getting horny, Wilbur and Estelle are strengthening their bond by belting out Sandy Denny’s 1973 folk-rock classic, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” Meanwhile, Iris has been feeling exhausted, possibly because her hot young stud boyfriend’s sexual endurance is outpacing hers. “Maybe you should cut back on your class schedule?” Zak suggests. “And focus your energy on the important stuff? Like sex with me?”

Marvin, 10/15/19

Meanwhile, over in Marvin, Marvin’s grandpa yearns to join his wife in the grave, and honestly: if the alternative is hanging around alive with the rest of his family, who can blame him?

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/3/19

Hello, Funky Winkerbean readers! Have you or a loved one been affected by CTE-related dementia, and have been hoping to gain some solace from a series of strips tackling the condition? Well, definitely don’t look up what “DRT” means if you’re wondering what a hardened, cynical police officer might say when approaching the scene of the tragedy that will forever define the remainder of your life! The rest of us can have fun trying to guess what surprising thing Bull was wearing (I’m sure it’s supposed to be a seatbelt, and the reason this is surprising will be explored soon, but I’m hoping it’s a t-shirt that says “I dedicated my life to entertaining others by playing and coaching a hard-hitting contact sport and all I got was this lousy degenerative brain condition.”)

Marvin, 10/3/19

Not sure even I would’ve predicted that a comic strip might be printed in newspapers where the punchline was “If you’d really like to ‘rough it,’ [something about a character’s anus],” but now than it’s here, it’s absolutely no surprise at all that it’s Marvin.